Citizen Science

Cal State Fullerton physics senior Bobby Wright wants to be an astronaut.

He’s not sure how he’ll reach that goal, but he’s betting it will involve a commercial company such as Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., and a doctoral in physics will precede any travels to space. “I’ve got to shoot for something big.”

Wright, chair of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Interclub Council, recently pulled off a pretty big feat – not as big as traveling to an asteroid – but with the help of CSUF’s student government, the dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and intercouncil clubs, the students landed Bill Nye as the keynote speaker for it’s two-day 11th annual science and math symposium themed “Explorations in Citizen Science.”

Nye, known as “Bill Nye the Science Guy” after his PBS TV show that ran from 1993 to 1998, spoke at CSUF on March 20 to a boisterous crowd. “He’s somebody that we all watched growing up as kids and someone that really resonates with kids in this age group,” Wright said. “It was a huge collaborative process that worked out excellently.”

Even President Mildred Garcia, who attended the event, was impressed. “I’m excited at what every student did to get Bill Nye here,” she said.

Nye dropped names, such as the late astronomer Carl Sagan, who was Nye’s astronomy professor at Cornell University where Nye got a degree in mechanical engineering, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and host of Sagan’s rebooted Cosmos, which recently aired its second show on Fox. Nye and Tyson recently took a “selfie” with President Obama.

Nye also got huge applause when he mentioned his recent debate against Ken Ham, a creationist who believes in the literal interpretation of the Bible and not evolution. Nye said religion and science can coexist. “They have to coexist. They’re both human experiences,” he said. But he added: “We have a non-insignificant portion of our population that is living in denial.”

For two days leading up to Nye, CSUF students and professors highlighted their research at the citizen science-themed symposium. Loosely defined, citizen science is amateurs or ordinary people doing science or helping scientists, or it can mean science for the masses.

Here’s a look at some of the students’ research:

KELLY SHAW GEOLOGY MAJOR

Project scope: Her group identified debris-flow hazards for Pai Valley in Thailand. In the past, at least two debris flows have come through the area. If this happened today, it would destroy the population of Pai, she said. Debris flow is mud, water, rocks and boulder. They’re powerful flows that come from the mountains. “The people who live there have no idea what they’re living on. Their homes are built on these huge rocks.” CSUF students are now helping some Thai university students to do more work and warn the people of Pai. She’s also working on more ancient debris flows in Death Valley.

Career plans: “There are so many areas of geology that fascinate me.” She’s going to apply to grad school. She’s also a mother of three, including one in college. “I’m a single mom and having the opportunity to go and do research in a foreign country was an amazing opportunity.”

How she got interested in science: When she was in school, she did a natural science field expedition. “It was three months hiking, backpacking and science every day. I just fell in love with geology through that program,” she said. “The Earth’s processes just fascinate me.”

What citizen science means to her: We want everybody to realize anybody can be a scientist. Science is all around us. What happens in Thailand can happen here. Science all around the world affects all of us.

Tell us something interesting: “There is an abundance of geology around us. This used to be a marine environment. They find whale bones in Orange County.”

ELIZABETH WHITE GEOLOGY MAJOR

Project scope: Using geochemical techniques to figure out the chemical makeup of the most primitive rocks in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Primitive rocks give geologists the ability to analyze isotopes (an element that has varying numbers of neutrons – it’s what scientists use to date things), which gives geologists an idea of the composition of the mantle below the Earth’s surface. It gives geologists an idea of how quickly the West Coast of North America formed. It’s good to have an estimate of how continents formed so scientists can understand the planet.

How she got interested in science: “I’m a first-generation college student. I was always interested in geology, I collected rocks and minerals,” she said. It was a geology 101 class that persuaded her to take up geology. She was fascinated about how many of the world’s natural hazards, such as volcanoes and tsunamis and earthquakes, are geology-based.

Career plans: She graduates in May and will go to graduate school in either San Diego or New Mexico. She plans to do geochemical analysis, which means she could work for a petroleum or hydrology company. “It’s hard to say at this point,” she said. She has a lot of options. “Any type of environmental analysis uses geochemistry.

What citizen science means to her: “Conducting science in a way that’s helpful for society.”

Tell us something interesting: “The whole of the Sierra Nevada mountains was underneath the ground. It has uplifted several miles, and I think that’s pretty cool.”

PETER KLOESS GEOLOGY GRADUATE STUDENT

Project scope: It’s already known that a variety of camels existed in Barstow from 13 million to 19 million years ago. But Kloess’ project did a statistical comparison that used two sets of data -- one based on bones and the other on tracks -- to determine the species of camels in Barstow. “The snapshot on the camels is different depending on which data you look at. This shows that you want to use both sets of data.”

Career: He teaches geology 101 lab classes at CSUF. Kloess goes on dinosaur expeditions for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont.

How he got interested in science: “I’ve had a longstanding love of fossils and paleontology,” he said. When he was young, he read dinosaur books and played with plastic dinosaurs.

What citizen science means to him: “I did this project before I was a student here. I was more of a citizen in that sense.”

Tell us something interesting: “California doesn’t get many dinosaur bones,” he said. But there are some, including in Orange County. Not a lot of them, he said. He’s studying some now. “It’s too early for me to say anything groundbreaking about them.”

MICHAELLA GAITE BIOLOGY MAJOR

Project scope: She looked at how the mineral copper enters our body through food as “copper 2,” but gets converted to “copper 1” by our human liver cells and other cells. “We hypothesize that there might be a protein on the cell that converts copper 2 to copper 1 before it goes into the cell,” she said. “We know how copper is taken in and how copper goes out of the body, but there are steps in between that we don’t know about yet.” But if scientists can understand how the copper gets converted, it may help treat Menkes disease or Wilson’s syndrome.

Career plans: She graduates in 2015 and plans to go to Western University of Health Sciences to study to become a medical doctor.

How she got interested in science: When she was in high school, she volunteered at the hospital and decided she wanted to become a physician. She studies biology to understand the body processes and biochemistry to understand the research behind medicine. Another reason she’s going into medicine is because of her parents’ worries about health care. It was always a concern because her family didn’t have insurance. “When my uncle got cancer, it was scary for us,” she said. “That’s why I want to go to Western because they’re very big on community service.”

What citizen science means to her: Introducing research to the general public and showing them all the exciting things we do at Cal State Fullerton.

Tell us something interesting: “There are a lot of things we still don’t know about our body. We, regular students, can contribute to helping the medical community and the nation.”